We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.
WILLIAM GOLDINGWe have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe Navy’s a very gentlemanly business. You fire at the horizon to sink a ship and then you pull people out of the water and say, ‘Frightfully sorry, old chap.’
WILLIAM GOLDINGI hope my books make statements about our general condition.
WILLIAM GOLDINGYou have the older generation like Iris Murdoch and Angus Wilson who are not as old as Graham Greene, but still are coming on. I dare say anyone who knew the scene better than I know it could fill it in with a very satisfactory supply of novels.
WILLIAM GOLDINGWhile I am on, I can discipline myself to that extent. When I am off, I can’t discipline myself at all. On the other hand, when I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn’t really matter.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHe found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life,where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s waking life was spent watching one’s feet.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI know there isn’t no beast-not with claws and all that, I mean-but I know there isn’t no fear, either.” Piggy paused. “Unless-” Ralph moved restlessly. “Unless what?” “Unless we get frightened of people.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHow would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
WILLIAM GOLDINGOne tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI’ve come across a novel called The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, that is really remarkable because it is a kind of fantasy of West African mythology all told in West African English which, of course, is not the same as standard English.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHe became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.
WILLIAM GOLDINGWe did everything adults would do. What went wrong?
WILLIAM GOLDINGIf faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
WILLIAM GOLDINGAs soon as Oliver Twist is serialized, people who would never dream of reading [Charles] Dickens, if they hadn’t seen him on their box, buy the paperback.
WILLIAM GOLDING